How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 714 - 298: Overtake! Overtake Them Hard! (6K, Extra 13/20)

"Haoran's analysis makes a lot of sense." Finally, Bing summed up the incident: "Although Qin Miao's start in this race wasn't very smooth, we have all witnessed Qin Miao's overtaking ability.

Whether it was this year's Monaco or last week's United States Grand Prix, Qin Miao has brought us a spectacular overtaking feast. I believe that in this race, even with a disadvantageous start, Qin Miao can fight back and achieve a result that will satisfy all of us!"

On the track, Qin Miao caught up with Stroll in the 3rd lap.

Thanks to the safety car triggered by the retirements of Tsunoda and Mick, Qin Miao was able to return to the tail end of the car flow after a pit stop.

This at least helped make up some of the time loss when the damage was already unavoidable.

Although soon after, the orange torpedo appeared behind Qin Miao, under normal circumstances, Ricardo could no longer pose any threat to Qin Miao.

The different car performances of the Mercedes and McLaren teams have predetermined that from the moment Ricardo got behind Qin Miao, he wouldn't be able to step beyond that line.

Throughout the race, he would most likely stay behind Qin Miao.

At the end of the 4th lap, the debris on the track was finally cleared, the overhead light of the safety car went out, and the race was about to restart.

Verstappen in front began to slow down deliberately, only accelerating sharply after exiting T13 and T14.

Hamilton behind Verstappen quickly accelerated to catch up.

This race is a great opportunity for both Verstappen and Hamilton.

A chance to further reduce, or even surpass, Qin Miao in the standings.

So just after the green flag appeared, Marco once again called the leader of the Red Bull's junior team, Tost.

Even though the junior team lost Yuki Tsunoda in this race, they still have Gasly who is in fourth place.

The two junior Red Bulls couldn't form a DRS train to defend against Qin Miao, but the combination of Red Bull and junior team still had strategic opportunities.

So besides notifying the junior team, Red Bull also abandoned the strategy of having Perez help Verstappen hold off Hamilton, instead they let Perez maintain his position on the track and not open up the gap with Gasly behind him.

Always ready to defend against Qin Miao who is catching up behind them.

It is true that Hamilton posed a threat to Verstappen by staying right behind him, but compared to Hamilton, Qin Miao, who has already secured 303 points, poses a greater threat and has a higher priority than Hamilton for Verstappen.

Clarify the main and secondary contradictions, after all, Qin Miao is way ahead in points compared to Verstappen and Hamilton.

Most importantly, Perez is merely an assistant to Verstappen, and the opportunities for him to play a decisive role are not abundant.

Plus, just as Mercedes believes in Qin Miao's defensive and tire management abilities, Red Bull also trusts Verstappen's defensive skills and speed, convinced that Verstappen can hold his position.

So Red Bull created a 1V1 environment for the two drivers, while all other attention was focused on Qin Miao behind them.

It is worth mentioning that Mercedes did not contact its customer teams to ask them to show leniency to Qin Miao.

But Mercedes's approach is understandable, since those are just customer teams and not as closely related as Red Bull and its junior team.

Of course, Qin Miao is not so aware of these intricacies.

At this moment, Qin Miao just wants to continue pursuing the drivers ahead, seizing the time to quickly enter the point-scoring zone of the top ten.

As the safety car exited, Qin Miao began to accelerate.

It is worth mentioning that starting behind other drivers has its advantages, which is that you can clearly see the sudden acceleration of the drivers ahead.

This way, when starting, there's no worry of being left behind, and it enables a quicker approach to the drivers in front.

Indeed, after exiting T16, Qin Miao was right behind Stroll at a distance of 0.7 seconds.

The aerodynamic efficiency of the Aston Martin car cannot compare with Mercedes, and in the exit phase, Qin Miao was extremely precise with the throttle, just right at the threshold that doesn't require countersteer correction.

If he pressed the throttle a bit more, correcting would be necessary, a bit less and the speed wouldn't be as high.

This extreme exit allowed Qin Miao to be 2 km/h faster than Stroll after leaving T16.

Approaching T17, a pseudo turn, Qin Miao continued to slowly close the gap with Stroll.

After T17, they reached the main straight.

Even though DRS wasn't enabled on the track by the 5th lap due to the safety car, the main straight is quite long!

Plus, Qin Miao's relative speed was fast enough previously.

So by just halfway through the pit lane, Qin Miao visibly closed in on Stroll, and after they passed the pit exit, the gap was only 0.2 seconds, with a feeling that Qin Miao's front wing was about to touch Stroll's rear diffuser ahead.